Co-chair
Vjollca Krasniqi
University of Prishtina
Southeast Europe Academic Women’s Leadership Network
Vjollca Krasniqi is a sociologist. She is an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Philosophy and Faculty of Arts, University of Prishtina. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Ljubljana, an M.Sc. degree in Gender, Development, and Globalization from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), and a BA degree in Philosophy and Sociology from the University of Prishtina. In Spring 2016, she was a visiting scholar at the Gender and Research Institute at Dartmouth College, United States. Her research interests are gender, nation-building, human rights, post-war justice, and social policy.
She has led and participated in numerous international research projects and published widely on these issues. Her recent publications include: Are we putting human rights into practice in Kosovo (co-author with Jane McPherson and Tatiana Villarreal-Otalora 2021); Skirts and Words: The Art of Acknowledgment, War Time Rape and Albanian Nationhood in Kosovo (co-author with Ivor Sokolić and Denisa Kostovicova 2020); Domestic Violence: Gendered State Rationality and Women’s Activism in Kosovo (2019); Migration and Human Rights in Kosovo: Perspectives for Social Work Education (2019). She is co-founder of the University Program for Gender Studies and Research. She is a member of the Executive Board of the East European sub-Regional Association of Schools of Social Work. She is co-founder and member of the Women’s Academic Leadership Initiative in Southeast Europe., She is a member of the steering committee of the Memory Studies Association Regional Group Southeast Europe. She served as the Vice-President of the State Council of Quality of the Kosovo Accreditation Agency (2019-2021). She has led and participated in numerous international research projects and published widely on these issues. She is a member of the executive board of the East European sub-regional Association of Schools of Social Work. She has actively engaged in gender equality and dealing with the past in Kosovo and the wider Balkan region. She has served on the Board of Directors of several civil society organizations in Kosovo.
Co-chair
Sanela Bašić
University of Sarajevo
Southeast Europe Academic Women’s Leadership Network
Sanela Bašić is an associate professor at the Faculty of Political Science, University of Sarajevo. She graduated from the Faculty of Political Science at the University of Sarajevo with a ‘Diplom’ degree in social work (2001), holds a master’s degree in intercultural work and conflict management from the Alice Salomon University of Applied Sciences in Berlin (2004), and a doctoral degree in social work from the Faculty of Political Science in Sarajevo (2010). She is engaged in social work education from 2002., starting as a teaching assistant at the Department of Social Work at the Faculty of Political Science of the University of Sarajevo, where she currently teaches modules on the history of social work, welfare policies, poverty and social exclusion, domestic violence, and social work ethics. She was a visiting professor at the University of Applied Sciences in St. Gallen (2017) and the University of Applied Sciences in Erfurt (online, 2020). Her research interests include welfare policies, social work history, poverty and social exclusion, gender-based and domestic violence, around which she has published extensively (four books, and over 25 scientific papers in domestic and international journals.
She was a member of the editorial board of Sarajevo Social Science Review and currently serves at the international editorial board of the Journal of Social Work (University of Zagreb), Journal of Social Policy (University of Skopje), Turkish Journal of Applied Social Work (Burder Mehmet Akif Ersoy University) and Trabajo Social Global/Global Social Work (University of Granada). She was a member of the Executive Board (2009-2017) and Secretary of the European Association of Schools / Faculties of Social Work EASSW (2015-2017), a member of the Executive Board of the Eastern European Subregional Association of Schools / Faculties of Social Work (since 2014), a member is the founding committee of the Initiative for Women's Academic Leadership of Southeast Europe, and a member of the executive board of the Network for Research of Social Services in the Context of (Political) Conflict.
Honorary co-chair
Barbara W. Shank
Southeast Europe Academic Women’s Leadership Network
Barbara W. Shank graduated from Macalester College with a BA in sociology, and then earned her M.S.W. and Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota. She has been engaged in social work administration for over thirty-five years, starting as BSW Field Coordinator and BSW Program Director and then as founding Dean and Professor of the School of Social Work at the University of St. Thomas and St. Catherine University. Her research interests included sexual harassment in the workplace and academe, social work curriculum and program development and 'teaching to mission'. She served BPD as Program and Conference Chair; NADD as President, Vice President/Program Chair, Treasurer and Co-Chair of the International Task Force; ICSD as Newsletter Editor and President; NASW MN Chapter as President and Secretary; Catholic Charities USA as Participating Observer on the Board of Trustees; CSWE as a Commissioner on the Commissions of Accreditation, Educational Policy, Global Education, and Information Management and Research, and Chair of the Board of Directors. She currently serves as a certified site visitor and on the Katherine Kendall Institute Advisory Board. Under her leadership, the School of Social Work at SCU/UST grew from 50 students to over 600, 4 to 34 full-time faculty and one to five programs. In 2014, the School of Social Work launched a DSW online program with a focus on ‘Education as Practice’. Dr. Shank retired in 2018 and now holds the title of Dean and Professor Emerita.